The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas · Page 1

In this issue: A special 36-page report on Salina — / 985-86 Home Edition — 75 Cents Salina, Kansas SUNDAY February 2,1986 114th year —No. 33— 80 Pages NASA isolates unusual flame in booster CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The board investigating the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger said Saturday that film of the last 15 seconds of the shuttle's 73 second Another memorial. See Page 10 flight shows an unusual spurt of flame in the right rocket booster. NASA spokesman Hugh Harris said neither the board nor the space agency will speculate about what that observation means. But other sources have said the tongue of flame, clearly visible in the pictures, burned into the adjacent fuel tank and caused the explosion that killed all seven astronauts. The film did not clearly confirm or conflict with those theories. It showed a tongue of flame apparently lashing upward from the rocket exhaust into an area that films of previous launches showed to be clear of fire or flame. The space agency, which has clamped down on information since Tuesday's explosion, disclosed earlier that Challenger's seven astronauts had no warning their ship was going to explode. Examination of a booster nose cone that was recovered from the Atlantic showed that the rockets that pull spent boosters away from the shuttle had not fired, the Coast Guard said. If commander Richard Scobee had been alerted to impending danger he would have hit a "ditch button," which fires the booster separation motors. "The booster separation motors were never activated," a statement said. Meanwhile, a Navy helicopter carrier, the USS Guam, plucked a 13- foot-diameter orange cone from the sea far north of the main search area because it might be the top of Chal- lenger's fuel tank. Harris said the films shown to reporters were taken by 70mm cameras and transferred to videotape. "We don't want the quick answer, we want the right answer," Harris said. He called the films of the 15-second period only' 'an area of interest—not the only area of interest." The films were taken from Play- alinda Beach, just north of the Challenger launch pad, and show a different angle from videotapes available earlier. Harris would not even agree that the pictures were the most unique thing seen by the investigating board. "I only know it is unusual," he said of the plume of flame. The brief NASA statement did not address statements to the news media that the right rocket booster experienced a small drop of pressure just before the explosion. That would be consistent with a leak, either from between the four segments that make up the rocket or with a burn through its side. "The board is charged with the responsibility of investigating this accident and they are gathering together all of the data from this and other cameras," Harris said. "This is what they are prepared to release at this time. This is one area they are looking at." The NASA statement about the nose cone confirmed for the first time that the booster nose cone, complete with parachute and four separation motors, was recovered from the sea. Because of the clean separation of the two boosters at the moment Challenger exploded, there had been speculation that Scobee might have hit the emergency button. "This evidence indicates very strongly that the commander did not punch out, that he did not ditch," said NASA spokesman Charles Redmond. Officers reflect after shooting FrltiM.nd.ll HUCKLEBERRY FINN AGAIN — Chad Eklund (left) gets some help from friend Donovan Miller as they take advantage of Saturday's mild temperatures and warm sun to paint a fence. Warm weather wilts winter-based business By BRENT BATES Staff Writer Police chief John Woody was talking with a visitor in his office Saturday, but the conversation was constantly interrupted. A steady stream of officers and other department employees—some in uniform, some on their day off — Profile of officer. See Page 3. would poke their heads into the chief's office and ask, "How's he doing?" "He's up and talking," came the reply from the chief or one of the others milling around the office. "He wants to meet his attacker." The chief and his workers went about their business Saturday. But their top concern was the condition of Glen Soldan, a fellow officer, coworker and friend who had been gunned down Friday after stopping a man for routine questioning. "They're all hanging around," Woody said. The mood has been "one of relief. Each report that comes from the hospital — they all have been good news, so it's been one of relief—and certainly concern." Maurice Barnard Moore, 43, Washington, D.C., was in Saline County Jail Saturday night in connection with the incident. Woody said he expects a charge of aggravated battery of a police officer to be filed against Moore Monday. Aggravated battery of a police officer — a class B felony — is a more By BRENT BATES Staff Writer The heat is on Larry Ring's business. Last winter, Ring kept busy pushing snow off driveways and parking lots with two Jeeps. This year, the four-wheel drive Jeeps are collecting cobwebs. "The geese are flying back north," said Ring, who is manager of the 1-70 Amoco, Ninth Street and 1-70.' 'We've been doing maintenance on them (the Jeeps) and making sure dust doesn't get too thick." Abnormally high temperatures for January and dry weather have scorched businesses like King's that depend on Kansas' harsh winter weather to boost business. "Winter's something that we really need," said Ring. "Myself, I like to see geese flying north. My golf game's really getting better. But as a manager, I hope we get a lot of freezing rain and snow." Joe Godout, a mechanic at East Iron Amoco, 1101 E. Iron, said the warm weather has drastically reduced vehicle battery sales. Normally, the station sells 60 to 80 batteries a month during the winter. This January, it has sold about 10, he said. Temperatures were the fourth warmest on record at Concordia, and the seventh wannest on record at Topeka and Wichita, according to figures released Saturday by the National Weather Service in Topeka. Average temperatures in Kansas ranged between 35 and 39 degrees — about 8 to 12 degrees warmer than (See Weather, Page 6) Today Inside THE KANSAS JAYHAWKS' inside game was too much for Kansas State to handle Saturday afternoon as KU posted a 64-50 victory in Manhattan. See Sports, Pages 19 and 22. Business 26-27 Classified 30-35 Entertainment 36 Living Today 11-17 Local/Kansas 3,7 Nation/World 5 On the Record 9 Opinion 4 Sports 19-25 Weather 9 Weather KANSAS — Cloudy with a chance of showers in the south, central and east today. Mostly sunny and very mild in the west. Highs in the low 50s in the east to the low 60s in the west. Tonight and Monday, cloudy with a slight chance of showers in the south, central and east. Partly cloudy in the west. Lows tonight in the upper 20s in the northwest to the low 40s in the southeast. Groundhog named Phil readied for seasonal prognostication PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — Folks wondering how much longer winter will last are waiting for a group of men wearing tuxedos and top hats to pull a groundhog named Phil from a burrow in a 99-year-old ritual that always means good business for this western Pennsylvania factory town of 9,000. Don't count on an early spring in today's prognostication. The groundhog, or woodchuck, has seen his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter in all but a handful of years. A dozen Punxsutawney businessmen who make up the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, have donned top hats and tuxedos to carry on the tongue-in-cheek tradition at Gobbler's Knob, a wooded knoll about three miles from town, since 1888. James H. Means, a contractor who acts as the group's president, plucks the lowly animal from his man-made hole at sunrise and translates the results, claiming as club president to be the only human able to understand groundhogs. The event has been a Chamber of Commerce dream. "The motels are filled and the restaurants are all filled. Anything like that always helps the town, you know." — James H. Means The town bills itself as "the weather capital of the world," crowns a Groundhog Queen and stages a Groundhog Ball. "We're getting good coverage. It brings people into town," Means said. "The motels are filled and the restaurants are all filled. Anything like that always helps the town, you know." The current Punxsutawney Phil, a 10-pound male donated by a local farmer six years ago, is kept in a glass-enclosed case in Punxsutawney's public library with his mate, Philomena, and another woodchuck named Barney. Phil is inserted into his special burrow the morning of the event. Less famous groundhogs hibernate from September until March, and there has been no scientific evidence showing that sunshine on Groundhog serious charge than one of attempted murder — which is a class C felony, Woody said. There are no outstanding warrants against Moore, but he's "known to law enforcement people," Woody said. He would not say why Moore was in Salina, but other officials speculated he was "just passing through." Under questioning Friday after being arrested, Moore admitted to serving tune in prison, leading police to speculate that it was easier for the suspect to shoot a police officer than to go back to prison for possessing a firearm. Woody said the theory was still sound. "The man assaulted an armed police officer," Woody said. "He was desperate, I'd say." When he first picked up the gun "he was formulating a plan then to use the gunito get out'of trouble." • The whole ordeal took less than an hour to unravel Friday afternoon. It began with a hit-and-run accident and ended with three bystanders chasing Soldan's alleged attacker several blocks, and eventually, with the help of two law enforcement officers, capturing the suspect. At about 1:20 p.m. Friday, a 1980 maroon Cadillac Seville convertible with a beige top driven by a man matching Moore's description collided with a car near Ohio and Crawford, pushing it into the rear of another. The man left the scene. Two (See Shooting, Page 3) Day has any meteorological meaning, the National Geographic Society says. The fun is based in part on a European tradition involving the Christian feast of Candlemas on Feb. 2. "If Candelmas be fair, there be two winters in the year," a Scottish saying goes. In the late 1800s, the feast appealed to Punxsutawney's German-born farmers, who hunted woodchucks for food. They evolved the first formal celebration of Groundhog Day. For the record, the National Weather Service has predicted colder and wetter-than-normal weather throughout most of the Northeast and Midwest for February, March and April. According to the calendar, spring begins on March 20, six weeks and four days after Groundhog Day. Coach offers two basketball plans By DAVID CLOUSTON 1 Staff Writer Since Marymount College President Dan Johnson announced Jan. 14 substantial cutbacks in athletic and academic programs, the question repeatedly has been raised whether head men's basketball coach Dan Pratt would resign. Pratt has not resigned. Instead, he has presented two proposals to Johnson, one of which he says would cut men's basketball ex- Pratt penses 50 percent next year but nonetheless maintain the quality of the program. Pratt's other proposal is to scrap the basketball program for a year. Johnson, who was presented with Pratt's proposals Wednesday, said Friday he is considering seriously the one that would trim the budget. Marymount College faces a projected $300,000 operating budget deficit at the end of the current school year. Because of that, the college's board of trustees has approved a plan to reallocate $500,000 of the school's present budget to overcome the deficit and enhance selected programs. School officials say the net costs of college athletic programs have risen 44 percent since 1982. A report prepared by Johnson suggests trimming at least $40,000 from the operational budget for men's basketball and another $51,000 from basketball scholarships over the next three years. The total men's basketball budget at Marymount this year, Pratt said, is about $129,000. That budget includes $66,847 spent for player scholarships and $62,000 for operating expenses, including Pratt's $20,000 salary. Under the administration's plan, the maximum scholarship new basketball players would receive next year would be $750, down from an average of $2,400 received by the 28 members of this year's squad. Pratt said in an interview Thursday the college administration has its own men's basketball plan that hinges on his expected resignation. Pratt said he expects that if he were to resign he would be replaced by a part-tune basketball coach who would be paid $5,000. Also, the operational budget would be cut to $14,000 and Marymount would recruit just 12 athletes, each of whom would receive a $750 scholarship. That budget would total $28,000. Current student athletes at Marymount who return next year would maintain their scholarships at present levels. Thus, Pratt said it could be three years before the college reaches the (See Pratt, Page 6)